I am not arguing the fact that SV does have a lot of CC to go along with some of the best burst potential. My concern is that earlier in the season a lot of hunters were face rolling with TBW and Readiness. It would give you a very long period of time that you could not be cc'd, or snared.

SV has a much larger problem with stuns then BM hunters had. A well played rogue can quickly force your trinket and or your Paly's BoP before resetting the fight with vanish leaving you in a much worse spot. DK's are not as bad as people say but if their healer is GOOD or their DPS partner is good it can be a very difficult fight.


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I will agree about prot warrior hitting softer then fury but I find fury warriors very easy to kite and control. A well played prot warrior can not be kited. You will have him in your face and stunning you constantly. Now I am not saying they are unstoppable in arena but this forum is for more then arena's and on my server they are a few prot warriors that do a large amount of world PvP so I was just looking for pointer or strats other hunters have found to work well. That is all.

PVE Instance resets take too long. So I was looking at trying arena. After the success of the DPS spreadsheet in helping me choose gear, I figured EJ would come through again.

SV hunter
I have a fair amount of gear from instances and have racked up some honor to buy some hateful.
I have been stacking AGI, resilience, spell penetration on my "backup" and pvp gear.

So my question is until I am able to get my arena rating up is it better to use end game gear and just gem and enchant for pvp. Or is it better to buy the entry lvl honor hateful pvp gear?

Is there a gear planner for pvp similar to the DPS spreadsheet? Or should I rate pvp gear with the same value as in the DPS spreadsheet's gear planner.

Thanks in advance for any help.

This is all very interesting. Dont laugh but I just started my 1st hunter char. about 4 weeks ago after leveling warrior, Dk, and Rogue. And I must say its a very fun class to play. I just hit lvl 49 this week and before I moved onto level 50 I decided to try some BG's. I have been working the typical cookie cutter BM build and its fine for pve but since this last patch Im not so sure of my spec. anymore. Anyway, I went into WSG for some pvp action. I usually run with a gorilla but I have a cat also so I figured the cat for DPS in the BG would be better so I went with the cat.

Lots of fun! 1st BG I was surprised I was #4 in damage done. It must have been a fluke though as I have been about mid way of the damage done in the other BG's since. I went in with a more experianced group and a friend who has a SV spec. hunter and a Boar and he trippled my damage and was tops in the BG. His gear is slightly better and Im sure he is a better player but not that much better. So obviously SV is better for PVP right now?

Whats the scoop on a good pvp build? Can any of you more experiance players suggest a pvp build I could try? I have looked at my friends build and am considering it but any advice is appreciated.

The first thing we need to know is what your plans are for this character. Are you leveling him to 80? Are you stopping to twink at a particular bracket? Are you running solo or with a group? Your answers to these questions will change what you are looking for in terms of talent tree and point distribution.

If you are going to BG on the side while leveling to 80 and still doing world PvP I say stay BM. It is not worth giving up the ease of leveling for a little better PvP spec with SV. A well played BM hunter will do very well in BG’s however it is not always the roll-face-on-keyboard-gg that everyone thinks it is. You need to pick your targets and save your cool down for when you need them. Popping big red on every single player you run into isn’t possible and if you find you can kill a caster without big red then save it for when you get jumped by a rogue or DK.

Give us a little more info and we can give you a little more feedback.

Tarus: You described my intentions pretty well. I do plan to continue leveling this char so he will not be a twink. Im not one who feel I need to race to lvl 80 as fast as I can so I do like to venture into the BG's once in awhile for a change of pace and PVP play experiance.

I also like running instances and I quest with 2 friends about half the time, they are a mage and warlock. So Being able to perform decently in groups is also desired. I typically lvl and do groups with my gorilla and also keep a cat leveled for the BG's. From the research I did 5 weeks ago prior to rolling this char. BM appeared to be the best tree to play for the desired performance I detailed above.

I am not completely up on all the changes that this last nerf hit hunters with. I know volley and my cats dps are down considerably.

It may be the BM is still the best choice for me, I was just very impressed with my SV spec. friends damage numbers in the BG's this week. I guess it intrigued me so I would like to at least know what build is best for strickly PVP play. Just want to learn all I can about this class and there seems to be an abundance of knowledge here.

Boneshaker:

Honestly if you are only going to be PvP'n on the side I would spec for ease of leveling. You will still have fun in BG's and world PvP regardless of spec. BM is your easiest leveling spec by far due to the fact your pet can tank EVERYTHING you would need him to. If his talents are spent right your mend pet can keep him alive through almost anything. MM and SV are much harder leveling spec's and you will find you will run out of mana much faster which results in more downtime. Grab a Gorilla and AoE grind until your hearts content.

I will get back to PvP as that is the topic. SV is a great PvP spec for the burst it can supply but only once you can spec deep enough for Explosive shot. MY concern with you jumping to SV as soon as you hit lvl 50 is you will not have any of the important 15 talent points in MM that really increase your damage potential. I love SV and have been PvE and PvP'n with it since Vanilla but in my opinion stick to BM. You still get plenty of PvP toy like Intimidation and Beastial Wrath. Also with the new pet talents you will have plenty of buttons to push already.

On a side I prefer to use a crab for PvP because Pin, Roar of Sacrifice, Charge, and Intervene are great. Try use Intervene on yourself when your pets charge is off cool down so It can get another quick charge off after it intervenes.

After not having done arenas in a while, I have decided to throw some time into arenas to see what we can do. I'm am more concentrated with 2v2 right now with a Resto Shammy, although a Holy Pally might be an option as well when the Shaman is unavailable..

I think I might have a decent PvP SV build but would like comments from those that have more experience than I.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft


Not sure if there is a successful 'cookie-cutter' spec out there but any comments would be appreciated.

PS: I am only running just over 500 Resilience, 20k HP in full Hateful. Still working on some off-pieces to bring my Resilience up further.

Okay, I'm sitting back at the honor cap again and have quite a few leftover emblem of valor I could spend on Hateful gear, but I want to spend them wisely. Obviously I could just start collecting random things, but I don't want to be wasteful, and it seems to me that mixing in pve gear might be the better way to go, and the right pvp upgrades mixed with pve upgrades as I attain a certain resil will go a long way to making the arena grind much easier.

So, is there a sort of defined gear set for where a SV hunter wants to be when they hit a certain resilience level? Anything other than the 5% hit to keep in mind when gearing? A certain combo where I might want to keep my 2 pc 7.5? Best trinket combos, etc.

You actually get meaningful value out of hit above 5% because of race/class talents that give them an added chance to be missed. Given the impact of a miss on a key Scatter/Wyvern/etc, I'd strongly consider gearing to 9% hit, which is the cap for paladins with the 4% miss talent.

That being said, there is no magic resilience number that you're aiming for, really. Consider how often you expect to be the primary target in whatever comp you play and gear accordingly.

So I signed up for the tournment, paid my $20 and now I have until the 24th to decide on the 3 charcters I will create.

My two favorite classes to play in pvp are Hunter and Warlock. I guess I will try another class over the next few days.

I know DK..and pallys are the OP but blah so far they have not been much fun for me to play. I guess I will pick one of those for a third if I do not choose Shadow Priest.

So the question is what is the uber Hunter PvP arena spec? The gear is static all the Deadly glad. I am assuming that Everyone will max Resil and Fire Prot. So I will need to gem hit to 9% and some spell penetration.

This will be the first time I have participated. will it be hard as a Hunter to get a team?

Any advice would be great since we have a few days before it starts.

Get yourself +80 Spell Penetration for harder hitting Explosive Shots.

No it would not because Hunter is useful class in all three brackets. For 2x2 you are the best mate for (resto) shaman and shaman is the best mate for you so I guess you find each other easily

I'm thinking about getting started with Arena, possibly in 2s or 3s, but before I do, I'd just like to get your guys' opinions, does there seem to be some sort of magic number I should be shooting for on my stats before entering arena? My gear isn't very good(1 deadly, 1 heroic, WG helm, couple savages, and a couple crafted pvp starter pieces).

Right now I'm sitting at around 566 Resilience, 880 AGI, ~3.2kish AP unbuffed, armory may or may not be showing what I'm planning on wearing for PvP obviously. I've also got a question about melee weapons, I use a staff for my PvE spec, and from what I've read dual wielding is a little bit better in pvp. So I'm just wearing a sword from Ebon Blade rep, and a sword from Wyrmrest Accord rep and they're not very good. Any suggestions on (fairly) easily obtainable one handers to start off with? Or should I just stick with the staff?

But yeah I'm just curious because in BGs I seem to do fairly well, unless I have a rogue, pally, etc sneak up on me and I get Focused by their entire team I don't get torn to shreds very easily, but I'm sure that will change in Arena.

edit- Also, I've got a prot pally friend who I'm thinking about doing 2s with, from what I've read in here it sounds like Resto Shaman or GTFO obviously, but how are hunter+pally teams doing?

Hunter Paladin is very good if and only if the paladin specs holy, where the most common specs are 37/0/34 (divine purpose, judgement of the wise and repentance included) or 49/0/22 (divine purpose included). 566 resilience with the gear you listed is not too bad and you won't get torn to shreds by EVERYTHING. Of course certain teams will still be able to kill you in less than 4 seconds if you let them, but that is pretty common in arena nowadays.

The logic behind using 2x 1H weapons is that you can go for a weapon chain (prevents rogues from disarming you) and some enchant that increases your damage. With only a 2H weapon you have to decide which of the two is more important to you, which leads to the situation that you are going to be afraid of rogues

If you want to arena with the pally as protection: good luck and prepare for some frustration.

A weapon chain will only reduce the duration of a disarm, not stop it completely. You should definitely stick with the staff over the crumby 1h weapons you mentioned. Generally, just pick whatever is best for you in PVE since you don't have access to PVP melee weapons.

Most of the highly rated PVP hunters I've seen us the undeath carrier or 2x deadly 1h axes.

There really isn't any magic amount of gear you have to get to before getting into arena. The best advice anyone can give you is to fuck waiting for upgrades and just start playing. You're going to get way more out of practice than gear. Honestly if you are a great player your gear won't start holding you back until around 2200. As for your comp questions, yes holy pally is viable though resto shaman may be a bit better.

Even if you don't have Access to pvp melee weapons you sould dual-wield in the arena. You can throw a weapon chain on your off-hand and then you can avoid putting 3 points in deflection for disarm reduction. Putting it on a 2 handed staff would be a nice chunk of burst you'd be losing

A good hunter can easily kite a Death Knight. With 16 second disenages and 22 second traps (specced and 4 set pvp bonus) you have the potential to have two frost traps down. Death Grip is on a 35 second cool down meaning you can disengage twice per death grip cool down. Even with AMS and a few nicely placed ghoul stuns a well played hunter can take out a well played DK. After the initial DG drop a trap, if he pops COI use Master's Call and Disengage out. Have you crab use ROS and Intervene after the Disengage and begin to Kite. Rinse and repeat with LOS and you should be good!

Even is 3's I wouldn't want to sacrifice hit for stam or resilience. With around 700 resilience which is obtainable without gemming for it you should be fine. Rogues and Mages both have 11% chance to be missed so when you're in that 3's game against PMR don't be screaming bloody mary when half of your explosive shots miss.

I dunno if i would stop at 700, because in 3s (from what i've experienced), hunters tend to get focused alot. Against PMRs I am often the main target and at 755 resil i feel a little squishy. In 2s its a tossup really imo. More pve gear for more damage or more stam/resil stacking, it could go either way. I am an advocate of the resilience stacking method myself.

I do however have a question of my own. I run a rather peculiar comp, warrior/hunter/pally. I find the most trouble we have is with double DK teams and PMRs (moreso with PMRs). Has anyone else played this comp before and if so how did they deal fare?

Hello there, to start off with I just started playing wow again since a break at the end of the summer, so I haven't leveled to 80 yet. I played quite a successiv hunter/rogue combo in 2v2 arena. I now hear that it's not as important to bring a healer to arena as it's "easy" to burst down a player. What I was thinking about was firstly if the setup still could work and secondly if it would be wise to add a warrior to the team and go 3v3 ^^, maybe prot as sunder armor with 3 physical dps is pew pew lazzers!

Resilience stacking is a double edged blade. Unless you have top-notch gear and you are a Jewelcrafter, then you are sacrificing a lot to get to 800-900 Resilience. I prefer sticking to 700-750 and having a 4000ish AP self buffed. This way you will be able to get some burst through, which is after all the role that your partners expect you to play in 2s and 3s.

I understand that getting focused might make Hunter's experience a bit hectic, but believe me 700 and 800 resilience will not provide you THAT much of a difference if you get focused by RMPs. It would make sense if you got to 900-1000 resilience and still maintain 3,9k AP and a healthy crit and hit rating. A good use of the defensive CDs might prove much more important than stacking Resi. Nitro Boosts also help a lot.

As a potential response the last poster, I would say that I haven't seen a competitive setup yet that runs without a healer. Paladins and Discipline Priests are so good in 3s (I would dare to say Shamans also but my experience is limited with them) that they would stop 3DPS teams on their tracks. I would also question the potential of the Warrior in arena, since right now they seem to be rather weak.